KODIAK, Alaska—The Alutiiq Museum has added 11 watercolor portraits of 19th-century Alutiiq/Sugpiaq people to its collections. Created by Sugpiaq artist Cheryl Lacy, the set reinterprets watercolor paintings made by Mikhail Tikhanov, a Russian artist from Saint Petersburg who visited Kodiak in 1818. It is titled Our Ancestors. Lacy’s paintings capture the faces and clothing of […]
Net — Kugyaq, Kugyasiq Kugyasiq aturtaaqa. – I use the net. Alutiiq people captured salmon with a variety of traditional tools. Streams were dammed with logs or stone weirs and the fish trapped behind them speared with special fish harpoons. Larger quantities of salmon, and perhaps herring and Dolly Varden, were captured with nets woven […]
TRuup’kaaq, Pa’ipaaq – Pipe Ata tRuup’kaaq. – Let’s see the pipe. Although tobacco was popular in the historic era, smoking tobacco was not. Historic sources indicate that Alutiiq people preferred to create snuff by adding tobacco to a mixture of wood ash, black tea, and dried crushed nettle leaves. This produced iqmik, a substance held in […]
Elder — Cuqlliq Cuqllit amlen’irtut maani awa’i. – There are not many Elders around anymore. The world’s cultures respond to aging in very different ways. Some societies believe that the aged have less to contribute than the young, considering the elderly a social burden. But in Alutiiq society, older people hold a distinguished, highly respected […]